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EVE Online News - Worker Misconduct Allegations Addressed
Posted by on Feb 07, 2007 | 90 comments in our forums
EvE Online Community Manager Kieron addresses the allegations of CCP employee misconduct on the EvE forums.
Our goal is to provide the best possible game, gaming experience and development process possible. In light of that, we would like to address the recent allegations of CCP employee misconduct. CCP has taken these charges very seriously and since they surfaced we have launched a thorough investigation consisting of an examination of character histories ranging back to their creation as well as into any connected characters owned by the developers involved. This examination was performed by the same internal division which is also tasked with standard periodic audits of all developer and volunteer accounts. Areas of investigation include, but are not limited to: messaging history, financial and transactional history, combat and corporation logs, item and cash transfers and IP logs.
As for the allegations themselves, they consist of two parts. The first part involved a case that happened seven months ago when a CCP employee's identity became public knowledge within his corporation. Per company policy, the incident was investigated and actions taken where appropriate, including the removal of characters whose identities were compromised.
The second part of the accusations stem from a leak of information pertaining to an in-game event arc. Due to the amount of time that has passed since the planning and execution of the event arc, we have not been able to confirm nor deny the veracity of these allegations.
In both cases, these accusations were recently brought forward when a player revealed the identity of numerous CCP employee characters. Since these play characters are known to belong to CCP employees, they will be removed from the game. Many of them have been around since the creation of EVE and it is most unfortunate that these developers are now forced to end their relationships with their in-game friends, but that is our policy when the anonymity of staff members has been compromised.
Last summer, CCP implemented stricter monitoring procedures and audits on all CCP employees' EVE accounts. We are confident that our rigid procedures and protocol will prevent any misconduct or, at least, allow us to quickly discover it, should such an unfortunate scenario arise.
As the community knows well, we at CCP enjoy not only playing EVE Online, but improving EVE and interacting with our playerbase. We feel EVE benefits from the developers playing EVE as any other members of the community do, and to impose artificial limitations -- such as no access to Tranquility or special flagging on a developer's player character -- would greatly hinder the development of EVE.
CCP is very passionate about EVE Online and is committed to its continued growth. We hope that this statement will put this issue behind us once and for all and allow us to continue moving forward with the support of our community.
Read more here.
It's a sad day for EVE
Oh well some developer decided to release aload of info and ruin the game for other developers :\ What a retard.
I don't see why your blaming CCP? This could happen in any company, atleast CCP are doing sumthing about it right away.
It wasnt CCP that screwed, it was a retard DEV
Once again???? CCP isnt SOE
How is CCP screwing you exactly?
They aren't doing anything about it. It's possible they haven't even understood what the problem is.
Did you not read the article?
I left late last year just before the newest update, having played since 2004. I miss my friends there but the game will drive you mad if you let it.
I left in 2004 though :P I didn't like all the new updates :(
Played from release 2003 to mid 2004
Well yes I did. But you have to read kieros first post too, and the allegations brought forward by Kugutsumen. Was or wasn't Dianabolic sworn to secrecy by CCP? I can't find that out in kierons post. Did RKK get 10 T2 BPO:s off Ishos (a developer called t20) when he was outed as an developer by someone? I can't find that answer in kierons post either. If so, is that ok with CCP? Exactly how did Dianabolic know Ishos was outed as a dev by an alt and not someones main? Why was that person afraid (sensible enough) a mere player like Dianabolic should get information on who petitioned Ishos as a dev to get him out of Band of Developers to use an alt and not his main?
As you can see CCP hasn't answered shit and made no attempt to clear their name and apparently probably won't either.
kieron say
"Since these play characters are known to belong to CCP employees, they will be removed from the game."
How is that not a resolution?
It doesn't answer any of the questions. If you're interested read kugutsumens forum. If that's a resolution, then as far as we know devs will continue to join BoB, out themselves as devs to BoB:s top brass, donate isk and BPO:s, leak game mechanisms and other CCP secrets , turn a blind eye to bannable EULA violations until they're outed on eve-o by a hacker. When that happens they retire the character or change it's name and start all over again.
I'm sure that misbehaving devs will get their due back in the office. it is not in the interest of the company to have employees who make the company look like a bunch of fools. I hope that people value their jobs enough not to make asses out of themselves. "When that happens they retire the character or change it's name and start all over again WITH A NEW JOB BECAUSE THEY GOT FIRED FOR BEING STUPID." developers are a great asset, but they are replaceable when they start to bring the company down.
-andy
BoB cheats not CCP. Good job CCP.
That's not a resolution because no action was taken against those who benefited from the devs actions. BoB should be disbanded and anyone in BoB who was directly interacting in a manner not in keeping with the rules should be banned.
I've had the chance to meet with and speak to Keiron at length(not about this issue). He's a good man. If there's anything he can do to put this right.. Trust me he'll do it.
what do you mean? They found that in fact there were devs in bob who let bob know they were devs. Action has been taken on what they've found so far. They aren't done looking. Now that they know BoB had devs in it that were in fact breaking the rules by letting people know they were CCP employees i'm sure they'll find more. Baseless? Seems to me they found the evidence to suggest just the opposite.
I'll withold my judgement a few more days, at least they can get some time to find the "evidence" and come clean. Even so, I prefer a game where 99% of the devs play their own game, as passionately as the rest. There's always at least one rotten apple in any barrel. Won't stop med from eating fruit.
I said "most of the allegations". That one thing isn't really something that worry me.
Well i actually cancelled my account because of the Alliances in 0.0. They just plain suck. BoB, IRON, D2, PA, ASCN they all lie to their members. It's hard to fight for something when you know you're being fed lies.
If you're ever in a big 0.0 war against BoB and all your pos's go offline or 6 billion isk worth of resources are taken from an operational pos you'll understand. People always used to say it was BoB infiltration but i know from experience that in a few cases that would have been impossible and thats when people started whispering that there had to be devs involved with BoB. Now we find that there were in fact devs in BoB. I don't think they'll have to look too hard. Actually i think if they just tell the devs to come clean or clean out their desk they'll find the answers pretty fast.
Now that's a better reason. I got the "0.0 burnout" about a year ago also. To much time wasted in endless gatecamps, endless debates, most not pulling their weight, orders questioned openly on comms by whoever and ofc the "lies", for security reasons. Altough I can agree with the latter, in part at least.
I went to Empire, and roam there with mutual wars, where we all agree on being enemies, and use RoE etc. Much more civilized, altough the enemies are Matari... ;)
That's not entirely true. I've known a few very quality 0.0 organizations in my days in EVE (Huzzah Federation for example). Sadly, most of those organizations are dead because they didn't use exploits to gain either financial or tactical advantage.
just some points
hacker was right - bad for CCP
only char ban - bad for CCP ppl expected more
if Dev get fired now after this - Bad for CCP, show that CCP need to be put under pressure to take the "correct" decision
Well seeing as how this is a business investigation and NOT a court of law, then yes, they have a right to use the information.
If a bunch of penile disadvantaged developers were cheating, then they should get the hammer. And CCP should be up front about it all.
As for the statement about the largest alliances not feeding information to all of the corp members: I was a peon in a tiny corp under one of the smaller sub alliances in ASCN and didn't know where we were going to engage the enemy until the hour it was to happen. There is a reason only a few know what is going to happen and when. As with running a government during war, you don't release the location of troop movements to the media (and thus to your enemies). Not all members of an alliance are faithful (eg: spies). If you want to be involved in decisions, planning and strat then create/join a smaller corp and prove yourself to the larget alliances. It takes time to gain their trust when a fleet of billion/trillion isk capitial ships hangs in the balance. /two cents
looking over the posts made here and on eve online forums i cant help but laugh at you guys bashing Band Of Brothers. i had the same thing happen to a clan i started a few years ago on a old FPS game because we were that damn good people accused us of cheating. Its stupid that you cans cant believe that your ability to work as a team and your own individual play is not as good as you thought. so you go on a massive witch hunt (*on the top dogs*) so to speak.
your own inability to play the game properly dwells on abusing others and causing as much grief as you possibly can to make your way through eve and have fun.
now for my thoughts on what is going on with the dev issue. it does seem that there was indeed a dev in "BOB" that much is clear as keiron and the other devs / gms came to the decission of deleting the dev's characters. as for his misconduct, that is still in question and as for the community based players demanding information as to weather this is true or not is a joke from a business point of view that wouldnt happen. It may do though because for all fairness to CCP, this tarnishes thier name so it does seem they will try to show as much information as possible weather it is bad news or good news for both CCP & BOB.
i recently spoke with a few friends who play the game in different corps and alliances with regards to finding out more information about the T2 industry and which of those actually have T2 blueprints. from the information that i received it seems that D2 themselves have a lot of T2 bpos both alliance owned and player owned. are you going to do a witch hunt on them next? no i dont think so.
all i can do is laugh at you guys and hope that some day you may learn from your mistakes
I hope that the alligations made come clear soon so that people once again can resume what they enjoy most and thats playing the game and then CCP can once again continue working on their advertising to bring in more customers to play the game. as for those of you quitting the game, its your loss.
I'm going to sign up to play right now as i've heard some good things about this game regardless of the forum trashing so many of you seem to do.
I wasn't talking about not knowing where you're going until you get there i'm talking about outright lies but i wont get into it. I hope you enjoy your EVE experience and don't have to deal with what i had to. Stay away from IRON and D2 thats all i have to say.
You don't even play and you're going to laugh at us because it has been found that BoB does have devs in it and has benefited from it and there has been other suspicious activity? that's amusing. Are you going to be laughing when CCP finds that most of these allegations are true? I can assure they are. And as far as BoB goes there are other Alliances just as good and dedicated as BoB. They've just been dealt blows by BoB under very suspicious circumstances.
By your 1 post i'd bet you do play EVE and you're a member of BoB that has made an account here to use the counter propaganda that BoB is more famous for than their combat exploits.
edit: Account made 2/7/7.. I'm just too good at sniffing out BoB bs after all these years of dealing with it in game HAHAHA i pwn you.
first of all, omghi2u
Long time fella, hows tricks?
Secondly, from reports on Kugmantsuns or however his name is spelt, site, he claims that not only are certain devs in BoB, but these include T20, who made the T2 BPO lottery system, LeMonde, Kieron and Oveur. Now I don;t know weather this is true or not, but they are mearly alergations coming from his site.
Thirdly to everyone else about the Devs player acounts that got delete, thats not stricly true. From what I know that char has a name and avatar change and then goes right back into circulation.
actually no i dont, since i found out about this so called issue from a friend of mine that i was chatting to he said that the eve forums were getting beyond a joke so i thought i might as well check out the forums to see what kind of rubbish was being spouted.
goonswarm or if you prefer goonies seem to have a big issue with bob as do with a few others. maybe they got their cans kicked a few to many times and are just biting their nails down to find things to throw back in bobs face. maybe the allegations are true maybe their not. I myself would rather belief the actual words of a CCP representative rather then a novice game player.
self owned 4TL
sure.
1) Bob getting help.
It seems that they have been very lucky in their wars with GS and ASCN. However with whats been raised in this thread and also the story behind the ASCN Titan being "probed" to death it seems that this is what people want to know about
2) The T2 lottery.
Granted I have no idea how this is supposed to run it does seem that the bigger groups get more. This is something that might have to be worked out.
3) No clear policy or guidelines on cheating.
I think that one is clear enough. There is no set way when someone cheats to know what path for the greaved to take. Granted this is a game where backstabbing is going to happen, but where does the game end and the business begin?
I listed these in the order in what people are talking about, and want answers too. Unfortunally it seems that the item that people want to know about, and it's starting to hit the gaming news sites like Blues news at www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl
This is a simple thing, people want answers or they are gone. There is no spin, no more simple truth then this.
EDIT:
One more thing. I'm not against the Devs or GMs playing the game. That is not the problem here. The problem is that somewhere down the road someone did something they shouldn't of.
If a dev or devs for whatever reason doesn't like you they can ruin your hard drive so it doesn't boot. Harass you when you're playing by playing tricks on you. Making corpses with derogatory names with you in mind where you bank or hunt. Causing disconnects or zone crashes where you play. Especially if you're on a test server (with a low population) of a mmorpg. Yeah I know some of it can be random stuff but if you have all of the above happening it's not random. Dev's can be quite childish if offended by someone in game. It's a dark side of mmorpgs.
Spiritglow
I'm not surprised something like this happened. It was only a matter of time before a developer crossed the line and aided one of the larger alliances. This game inspires some of the deepest, most angst-ridden passions I've seen in an MMO. Especially in the large alliances. I think most devs would be hard-pressed to use their powers only for good, as it were. Canceling dev characters is like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped and the barn's burned down, although something had to be done to punish the devs involved.
I think if BoB did benefit in a material way those benefits should be taken away. That's only fair.
they should have reported the dev, no! they chose to abuse his powers!.
BOB ARE CHEATERS!
CCP will have to work hard to regain the trust of their community, that statement yesterday by Kieron was already known to most people and it aint good enough!
The investigation, was an internal one by non other than CCP staff, it should have been done by a 3rd party, after that statement yesterday by Kieron, whatever CCP say now, will be seen as lies.
CCP prefer BOB
Thx Kug for brining the light to our eyes (we knew already, just had no proof to point the finger)
When BOB left the North and PA there, they moved in Delve.
One of my friends (BOB corp member) said to me "PA didn't won the war. We are just moving to Delve now Blood will come there. It will be a rich area". One month later, Blood (NPC Pirate Faction) moved to Delve (as ingame Event).
I was Evol member for a period of few months. I was even planning to go to their camp in Denmark for holidays.
But i decide to give up my char to a friend and make a new one none knows about and play in peace.
Now in June, (in the period when the the gathering/holidays was), I decide to make a joke in the forums. I create a demo account with a brand new email (nothing to connect to my rl one) fake name etc. And I post that now BOB are on holidays is good oportunity to invade their space.
Few hours later I received on my MAIN email account an email from a BOB member asking me why I did such post. (They track my static IP).
After that I stop even looking EVE website or bothering about.
I don't accept such crap as paying customer.
I dont mind DEV's / GM's playing the game, it's only when they abuse their powers, that things will go wrong, as has happened here.
People here saing they quit, they have done it after this incident, wen they finished their tuturial, thous who say that left are probably alt accounts ,haters with 1 or 10 posts here.
No one with a good sence will quit EVE because of this, it wasnt CCP that failed, it was a DEV(human person), CCP posted on oficial forums if they find this guy is a shiter, he will not be a CCP member no more
More kids, if they arent all gone, will leave beceuase they cannot understand matters, that are not flat out mass media friendly.
This is good. Actualy this was a way to make the community even better.
The stupidity I read is incredible. Dont waste your time on these boards, go get yourself educated.
Yea I got mine so stfu.
Cheers
No, but CCP is well on its way to becoming like SOE.
Here.... tin foil hats for everyone. Soon someone will say it was CCP on that green hill the day Kennedy got shot. Amazing way to create imaginary corruption, just because developers play their own game... Never compare your megalomaniac, powergaming, constantly intriguing piece of mush you call brains to a guy that work with a game 8-12 hours a day, then step in for an hour or two to relax.
Are you delirious?
i think you need to take your asshat off
They are about as devious as SOE, they just hide it better.
Seems SOE has formed itself a new expression. Everynow and then in your primary school classes, you will see someone you dont like and say "Oh man, you are so SOE"
Or
"My teacher is so SOEish"
Jesbus bunking crusoe, get real. Its like hearing George Bush talking about Peace and axis of evil. Its an insane world with too many insane extremely and surprisingly unrelfective people.
I don't think anyone is complaining that the devs shouldn't play their own game. It seems to me though that they can accomplish this without jumping into twink guilds to gloat and pwn all.
What all this DOES show, is that they love their own game so much. And that they are proud of what you can achieve in their own game.
Its just wonderful that we now know for sure that the devs realy play the game.
Human nature fucks things up, true. But it is not any where NEAR the gamebracker DEVs that sits with SOE.
That devs were in bob, and got known to RKK directors (not to BoB membership overall), is the only true thing in this whole witchhunt.
Yes, one dev won bpo's, just like any regular player did. If you read the statement you can see that Kieron actually says so. The dev left the bpo's with RKK when his identity was discovered more widely and he was forced to remove his active player characters as per CCP guidelines. Leaving your possessions with your corp when you quit is quite normal in a communistic corp. It's what I would do, except that Evolution is even more extreme in our communism and I simply don't even own anything ingame.
All the other tripe, about ebaying, cheating this and that and getting inside information or whatever else is simply conjecture made to look true enough to fuel the already widely spread BoB hatemongery.
You all know what happens in competitive games with the dominant player team right ? Right, they get constant accusaiotns form sore losers. That's what this is.
So just coz someones job is a dev, they shouldn't be allowed to play EVE at all? I'm sure CCP have strict regulations on abuse of power and divulgance of information, and it sounds like that's exactly what's being investigated. If any dev's been cheating, I expect they'll ban them like they'd ban anyone else for exploiting, but with a bonus of being fired for breach of contract!
At the moment, all CCP sound sure of is that someones true identity has been rumbled, therefore sparking a bunch of whines from people who can't comprehend that maybe, just maybe, all they were doing was enjoying a good game. I feel sorry for the innocent devs who've lost their characters because of this.
I've been playing EvE for a few months now, really enjoying it.
But.. the one thing I dont understand in all this is, who is this Bob fella and why dont they just ban him if he cheated? Thats what they do in other MMO's. In the meantime cant you just /ignore bob? does this work with EvE?
I beg to differ...
BTW.. every word that comes out of a BOB mouth now is a lie, e.g. if you dont like anything on the CAOD forums in EVE-O, all BOB will do is flame and troll to get the thread locked...
Have fun, the end is nigh!!
These Qs weren't answered, they'd better answer them in time:
"Was or wasn't Dianabolic sworn to secrecy by CCP? I can't find that out in kierons post. Did RKK get 10 T2 BPO:s off Ishos (a developer called t20) when he was outed as an developer by someone? I can't find that answer in kierons post either. If so, is that ok with CCP? Exactly how did Dianabolic know Ishos was outed as a dev by an alt and not someones main? Why was that person afraid (sensible enough) a mere player like Dianabolic should get information on who petitioned Ishos as a dev to get him out of Band of Developers to use an alt and not his main?"
"BoB should be disbanded and anyone in BoB who was directly interacting in a manner not in keeping with the rules should be banned."
I wouldn't go on disbanding them, only deleting accounts and property of ppl who are guilty.
"One of my friends (BOB corp member) said to me "PA didn't won the war. We are just moving to Delve now Blood will come there. It will be a rich area". One month later, Blood (NPC Pirate Faction) moved to Delve (as ingame Event)."
"13 new complexes moszt in BOB controlled areas with new patch!" out of 17 introduced (talking about only those that are good for earning money!
I saw it with my eyes. (that BOB cheat/use exploits)
When we managed to destroy (ASCN) a POS in OOYZ (The system that went offline all the sudden with all posses without warning) we put a small one and a few guns on it. We had a senior manager who knew how to setup POS around. POS was fueled, guns fueled and anchored, ammo put in.
Guns wouldnt work. Carrier that was in the shield got targeted by all bobbits (10 of them) that came in. Usualy, you can't target anything within POS shield (and cant target from within to outside the shield) bu they could.
It was 1.5 month later that other ppl attacking LV POSes and ships were accused of using passive targeters exploit?!!!!
NO ONE FROM BOB WAS Punished for that incident.
Similar happened during summer in BOB controlled space when other attackers deployed their POS and were killed within...
and on the pos guns is they were not online yet win bob was at the pos bob left right before they were on lined and ammo poot in to them
and on the cap ship it was axuley about 10k outside of the bubble
stop whining and FIGHT BOB in game just because they have the best pvpers in eve and you can not defeat them they must be cheaters BS grow a paire and FIGHT not make up falls alagations just rember 1 thing I sum one can hack they can also steal ISPs and make false posted to implicate people that are not reley involved so get a life and play the game
O yeah and you all say all bob corps have 10 + T2 bpos DICE has 0 T2 bpos
I was looking at aftershock's carrier WITHIN shields of POS being shot at!
Even if you try to explain all the previous things you mentioned, YOU CAN'T SHOOT at things IN POS.
Unless you have knowledge of exploiting...
i seriously doubt CCP are going to be able to brush this huge pile of shit under their carpet.
they seriously need to pull their heads out of SirMolle's ass and do something, at the moment, they look very corrupt.
for the last 3 years, i have had 3 accounts, thats approx 540 euro's per year, never again, till this shit is sorted, hope the community pulls out too.
thats my final word on the subject
to let you know jayanti, BOB is an alliance of corpo and one of the largest from what i can read.
i think that all this is lot of noise, let's have faith in CCP if any one has cheated as a player (a dev, a gm or a plain no one like all of us doesnt matter at all), and CCP is abel to track the cheating, they will, i'm sure of that take the right action to punish the cheater and to as far as possible correct the mishif.
if the cheating is related with internal acces to the game or internal ccp news so the retribution will for sure go to the real world too.
devs play the game, great, i do hope so !!!!!!
devs cheat, ok they cheat, like all other cheater they should be baned, if they dont cheat and that their dev status dont give them any sort of adventage on us all why should they loose their pilots ???? who knows bill gates might be playing EVE and so as he runs windows he should be baned ??? just cause he might use his position to cheat ?, as long as he dont he should not and the same is for all the CCP devs and staff ...... as long as they dont cheat !
umm.. he said the POS was offline, which means the shield was offline. If shield was offline, there's nothing to protect ships from being targetted. Maybe the POS you speak of was online, tho. In which case, yeah - exploiting gits!
Anyway, I'm just pondering this in my head, so forgive me if I'm talking rubbish - I wasn't there and probably have no reason commenting. I have no love for BoB, mind you.. I just can't stand it when people shout HAX all the time.
Kugutsumen doesn't take $30 off my credit card each month in exchange for a game they assure is fair.
Kugutsumen doesn't boast about how much better he is than everyone else, or how much the devs and game love him, over all the others.
Kugutsumen doesn't have the devs bend over backwards to protect him, when his words and actions get him into trouble.
That being said, if it were any other alliance, or any other players, we might give those players the justice, mercy, or fairness BOB is now begging to receive.
But this is BOB we are talking about, who has never once acted with justice, mercy, or fairness toward anyone. In fact, they gloat at their ability to shrug off such considerations whenever it suits them, and see their power as needing no justification. Do you really think that if BOB somehow shakes this rap, they'll learn a little humility, and decency? Get real.
If he is a hacker, then the evidence is genuine. If he is a liar, then he's not a hacker. Either way, I don't really think anyone at this point really cares to hear BOB's side of the story, because to be quite honest, that's what BOB has taught us to do in matters like this. The truth of whatever is up there, or the motives of the source are inconsequential. It is in our interest to believe that its all true about BOB and CCP, and that alone is sufficient justification to believe it.
I mean, why should anyone care that justice is done for BOB, and these devs? When BOB gets knocked down, everyone else who is not BOB stands to gain. When CCP loses subs, there will be more for the rest of us who stay. I mean, we all know someone in EVE who was banned for things they didn't do, and we never cared then. Why should we care now?
But I believe Kuguts blogs, too much to fake. BOB leadership has proven to be a bunch of rotten corrupted eve-players, ebayers and many of the worst things they have accused others about in the past.
I remember DigitalCommunist saying that if there was something wrong in BOB he would fight as hard to eliminate it.. as hard as all hist efforts spoiling shit over ASCN and his personal crusade to the evil CYVOK and his quotes on his blogs in ASCN forums.
About CCP, not a problem with CCP-devs playing the game. I do have a problem if they favour their friends in the game giving them info about events, not to metion tech2 blueprints, clearly favouring those close to them when they should favour all eve players equally.
A dev can play in an alliance, but that Alliance must not get anything from CCP other alliances can get.
CCP will try to diminish what has happened and wont tell any of the results, if there are any. Im sure.
Btw, word says is Kieron himself one of the devs involved.. and that tells much about how honest the investigation is going to be.
Many of the other issues in the leaked posts cast a bad light on BoB. The reaction of the BoB posters makes me sure that these issues have not been created and actually did happen. However, I don't really see that any of these issues are actionable. They certainly do tarnish BoB's image and they'll have to deal with that.
If any of the posts show that BoB has been knowingly been using exploits, then they should be treated the same as any other exploiter. Any transfers from that player should be reversed and any detrimental effects to other players should be reversed. I'm not an ASCN fan, but I would include returning their Titan as well any conquered space if it were applicable.
There are three bigger issues that people are missing in all of the BoB hate. First, CCP allows Devs/GMs to accept high level positions in major Corps/Aliances in the game. Devs/GMs will have inside information that *will* affect their decisions in the game and when they are in high level positions, their decisions are a guiding force. Devs/GMs should be banned from taking on these roles.
Second, if a Dev/GM breaks the rules their character should be *deleted* with all of its assets even if they were transferred to another players. This should be stated clearly and would make a Dev/GM think twice about breaking the rules. However, if the identity of a Dev/GM is revealed by another player and the Dev/GM didn't do anything wrong, then a rename and avatar change is the acceptable answer as there would be nothing gained by revealing the name of a Dev/GM.
Third, there have been far too many "conincidences" of players being in the right place at the right time for events. Far too many instances to be ignored. The only conclusion is that event information is being leaked. CCP needs to address this issue in a strong fashion. I would go so far as disbanding AURORA and move all of work regarding events in-house. In addition, those working on the events should not be allowed to play.
CCP needs to not only investigate this issue and respond to any incidents of misconduct, but they need to revisit their rules for Dev/GM participation in the game and take steps to prevent information leaks.
For my part, I'll wait and see what CCP does before deciding on my future in EVE. However, most of my Corp are now playing other games. They lost their desire to play when these issues were brought to light. All of our accounts are paid for a few months and our decision to renew will be entirely based on how CCP handles this situation.
At last EVE Devs play their game.
Not like Vanguard devs that play WoW
"One of the most important things to us is to prove out that time spent in Vanguard is more important than time spent in other games. Because, I'm tight on time - I'm trying to level a character up to level 70 in World of Warcraft, and I've got more level 60s that need to be leveled up than you could imagine. And I can't divide my time up between multiple MMOs very effectively, there's just too much stuff going on. So, I want to know what I'm getting for my time investment to be worth something."
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/vanguard-saga-of-heroes/761165p3.html
Can anyone say, Lamonde! - BoB. The complete destruction of ASCN.
Enjoy your game ccp, you won't have it much longer.
We are leaving in droves, and yes Wow is silly but fun, and the devs never come in and take away everything you've spent years building.
Stupid CCP, goodbye and good riddence.
NOW we have to wait and see what Kieron say
i am happy whit BPO removed
BoB director baned
DEV kicked from CCP
THUS no info like kieron said was due at start of the weekend
BOTTOM line doesnt take 9 calander days to investigate the issues at hand
guess I can find better use of 3 X 14.95 each month
kieron posted
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=473335
more inc .....
I don't doubt at all that all is true that Kugutsman said.
The bastards.
I hope they along BOB rot in hell.
Yes,you don't know what you're missing. Pay CCP for the privilege of playing a game with the odds stacked against you. Just what everyone wants!
Every game is open to abuse, but this is different. The abuse did in fact happen. CCP discovered the abuse and deviated from their stated company policy and didn't terminate T20's employment. They left the BPOs in the game and covered it up. When this issue came to light, CCP tried twice to state that the issue was closed but the community relented. Then, we had T20's confession. Now CCP has declared the issue closed without answering many of the questions of the community.
And the BPOs are only *one* of the many issues. Not to mention that this isn't the first time that CCP has been caught helping BoB. *This has happened before.*
In a game like EVE, any kind of Dev/GM help be it inside information or spawning BPOs to give to your friends has an impact on the game. Would ASCN still be alive without Dev help? Would BoB even be so big? We'll never know the answer to those questions, but I'll play the odds.
Please stop trying to whitewash this incident and act like it's no big deal.
I like the community's response to that incident.
Every day more and more groups unite against the alliance (BoB .. Band of Brothers) that got the unfair help from the dev(s). People may not be able to show CCP how pissed off they are outside of the game short of cancelling their subscription (especially with all relevant posts being near-instantly deleted on the EVE-O forum).
But they can make their displeasure known in game by hitting BoD (Band of Developers) ... and they do. I call that poetic justice.
Have fun
Erillion
I had the hope that continued pressure from the community would lead to further changes in CCP, but they have declared it over and will not allow any more dicussion on the topic. I'll miss EVE immensely, but I refuse to be treated like that.
It is good to hear that those players that can't bring themselves to quit the game are moving to dismantle BoB. Best of luck with that endeavour. Hopefully, the Devs won't be so brazen as to hamper your efforts.
I've been following this for awhile now.
I think this thread is mis named. It should be "CCP avoids allegations".
They have introduced their "Head of IA". Unfortunately, he appears to be one of the guys who investigated the original issues with T20 and did nothing about it. Yup, we can depend on him.
They continue to refuse to answer the really pertinent questions, such as, why were the T2 BPO's left in game?
They are not addressing anything. They are just continueing to try and ignore it in hopes people will just go away.
"In both cases, these accusations were recently brought forward when a player revealed the identity of numerous CCP employee characters. Since these play characters are known to belong to CCP employees, they will be removed from the game. Many of them have been around since the creation of EVE and it is most unfortunate that these developers are now forced to end their relationships with their in-game friends, but that is our policy when the anonymity of staff members has been compromised.
Last summer, CCP implemented stricter monitoring procedures and audits on all CCP employees' EVE accounts. We are confident that our rigid procedures and protocol will prevent any misconduct or, at least, allow us to quickly discover it, should such an unfortunate scenario arise.
As the community knows well, we at CCP enjoy not only playing EVE Online, but improving EVE and interacting with our playerbase. We feel EVE benefits from the developers playing EVE as any other members of the community do, and to impose artificial limitations -- such as no access to Tranquility or special flagging on a developer's player character -- would greatly hinder the development of EVE."
What I read there was contradictory, they say they are removing compromised characters but I find that exceptionally hard to believe, whats more likely is that they've been renamed and are still roaming around. That last paragraph pretty much sums it up for me, CCP wants their people playing the game, in it up to their ears so to speak. The problem that I see is that this is pretty much just saying we're going to monitor people more closely, but for all intents and purposes it business as usual in Iceland.
Tell the players what they want to hear and cloud it with double speak so the message is moot. So long as the subscriptions keep coming in CCP is happy to shine on their players and let their own Dev's cause mayhem with their advanced knowledge of the game and the available mechanics which can be pushed to the breaking point. Which of course they will just shrug off calling it a feature instead of what it really is an exploit. Only in this particular case they get two for the price of one, they'll be exploiting the game itself and the players who think the playing field is level.
Well, we who have to "feel" the effect of the imbalance caused by this worker misconduct every day we log into EVE do not feel that this topic "has been beaten to death".
We still wait for more decisive action from CCP concerning this particular incident AND we still wait for more sweeping changes to the game. That may include changes to the compromised T2 lottery mechanism That may include changes to the way developers participate in the game, making sure that their influence does not ONCE AGAIN affect the balance of power in this single EVE shard of ours.
That especially HAS to include ways to reduce the current effect of metagaming (using out-of-game mechanisms to influence in game events and using in game mechanisms in a way never intended by the developers) on EVE. At the moment this is essentially ruining one half of the game (the 0.0 space alliance/corporation PvP & RvR gaming aspect). It does not matter how well you play or how good your corporation is - only he who metagames best will win: Those who log in after the 12th node crash as compared to the one that quits after the 11th node crash. Those who hack other TS servers better than their enemies. Those who use obscure bugs (passive targeters through POS shields anyone ?) better than others.
Until these problems have been solved, CCPs reputation will be tarnished. Until these problems are solved i can only recommend some casual empire gameplay to newcomers in EVE, which means they miss an important part of the EVE experience.
Have fun
Erillion